CinemaCon 2024 Day 2: Box Office Wins, Anime, Warner Previews

As per usual, CinemaCon day 2 began with the State of the Industry address and numerous presentations from NATO President and CEO Michael O'Leary, CinemaCon Director Mitch Neuhauser, Chairman and CEO of MPA, Charles Rivkin, and The NATO Marquee award, presented to the CEO of Classic Cinemas Chris Johnson. The highlights of these presentations included the box office gross for 2023, Barbenheimer, and the ongoing issue of piracy.

The audience then got a lesson on Anime, as Sony Pictures subsidiary, Crunchyroll's Senior Vice President for Global Commerce, Mitchel Berger, took us through a short history of Anime, examples of the different types of movies, and offered a sizzle reel of Anime fans talking about their love of the genre and the greater Anime community at large. Finally, he hyped up the crowd in the Colosseum by showing us trailers for new Anime coming to theaters this year. These included Spy Family: Code White, Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle, Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom, etc.

When the Trade Show floor opened at 10 am there were plenty of booths to peruse. Everything from projection equipment to reclining seats and concessions can be found in the various ballroom spaces. It is always interesting to see what innovations companies have brought up and what new ideas are hitting the market. Everything from popcorn buckets to new candies are on display and samples of foods can be found around every corner. Unlike past years, the press was invited to a guided tour of some of the vendors by NATO's Michael O'Leary.

The afternoon of speaking with vendors or, in my case, heading to an offsite theater for a presentation by Kaleidoscope, the main event began - Warner Bros. Studio presentation. Presidents of national and global distribution, Jeff Goldstein and Andrew Cripps, respectively once again made the audience laugh with their Beetlejuice costumes, complete with spiky, white wigs. They discussed the relationship between distributors and exhibitors and, as always, thanked the crowd for their support.

Warner Bros. Co-Chairs and CEOs, Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, then took over to bring numerous celebrities on stage where they all discussed making the films and finding their characters before showing footage of the 2024 upcoming releases. Some of the highlights included highly anticipated releases such as Furiousa: A Mad Max Saga, Mickey 17 starring Robert Pattinson, The Watchers, Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Saga, Tim Burton's sequel that was 35 years in the making - Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice and a trailer for the highly anticipated, Joker Folie à Deux.

Warner Bros. brought more than a dozen actors and directors to the stage to discuss their films and hype the audience, full of movie theater owners, for not only the rest of 2024 but also some projects that are in production for 2025. With so much quality content on the way, the audience seemed excited for the rest of the studio presentations this week, as well as, the rest of 2024.